The transformation of wild-flower meadows into arable fields has been disastrous for bumblebees. Photograph: Anne Keiser/Getty Images

It was Peter Cook who first formally identified the comic potential of the bee; there is something funny about them (such as Cook's Holy Bee of Ephesus, who buzzed around Our Saviour on the cross). They may sting (not the males, though, I was pleased to learn), but they also have charm, and, literally, sweetness. The bumblebee is the most charming of the lot; even its Latin name, Bombus, is amusing, and in the way Professor Goulson tells its story, we are never far from a smile, however clearly he states their grave predicament. It would appear their charm has rubbed off on him.

I noticed the words "bestseller" on the cover of this book, and thought "Come off it," but Goulson is particularly gifted at transmitting his enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, these flying balls of fur, so it shouldn't be a surprise. Experts in animal behaviour do tend to be, to a hugely engaging degree, oddballs. (Cf Hugh Warwick's A Prickly Affair, about hedgehogs, which I reviewed four years ago.)

It might be best, though, if you read this book in solitude. Right from the start, anyone near me was at risk of being bombarded with Fascinating Facts I'd picked up. For instance, you know when you see the first bumblebee of the year, and it's so big that you almost jump out of your skin? That's because it's a queen, who, as well as being larger than her subjects, has been hibernating and is stuffed full to bursting. (Though ruderal bumblebees, which used to be extremely widespread in this country, but now live mainly in New Zealand, are all impressively hefty: "more like flying mice than bumblebees", as Goulson puts it.) Who is chiefly responsible for the decline in bumblebee populations in this country over the last 60 years? Adolf Hitler. (One never ceases to be amazed at the scope of his malevolence.) The reason being that in order to become as close to self-sufficient in food production as we could, our centuries-old patchwork of fields, with their many flower- and wildlife-supporting hedgerows, had to be torn up and replaced with the vast fields of arable we see today; and heavily fertilised soils favour grasses over the wild flowers, which vanish under the competition; also, the very rapid spread of mechanisation, which demanded such changes to the land meant farmers were no longer reliant on horses. Horses love clover, which farmers would allow to grow for their benefit; and bumblebees love clover even more than horses do, so when the clover went, so did the bees.

The story of the disappearance of bumblebees is a woeful one, true – and we have not even got to the matter of pesticides and their part in bees' downfall yet – but Goulson's good humour and high spirits give us hope. (Not to mention his turn of phrase, a constant pleasure. Even when he's informing us about the body temperatures of bees and the importance of surface area relative to volume in animals, he can be funny.)

Goulson is actively involved in conservation and repopulation, and tells us that the surprising thing is that all our significant knowledge of bumblebees is relatively recent: at the end of the 19th century, the world's most informed authority on bumblebees was a 16-year-old boy called Frederick Sladen.

So there is much to learn, as well as much to do. In an attempt to cease relying on the short-termism of university funding, Goulson has bought a property in Charente, in south-west France, where he can experiment with various wild flowers (there is a hugely amusing diversion on the difficulties of buying property in rural France; and, like many good scientists, he speaks virtually no French at all).

The important thing is that this book will make you bee-conscious. You will learn a lot, not just about bumblebees, and you will never have a dull moment. But there is some urgency here. The story of the extinction of whole species of native bumblebee in this country alone is one that needs to be more widely known. So read this book. Do it for the bees.